Triple Boot. Any hints or tips?

[Dragynn]

Well I did search on this subject, and several threads came up, lotta great info from Old Polack on multiple-boot set-ups. UncleV suggested a conglomeration of those threads/info and a sticky, I think that's a great idea!

I already have a dual-boot of windoze and Zen-Mini, thinking of adding another version of PCLOS to that, my current setup is thus:

Code:

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 100.3 GB, 100255211008 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12188 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x30273026

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        7649    61440561    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2            7650       11856    33792727+  83  Linux
/dev/sda3           11857       12188     2666790   82  Linux swap / Solaris

*Note that I used fdisk for info, Old Polack is gonna be so proud of me ...probably still have to use g-parted to make partition though, I likes my GUI!*

sda1 being Windows-NTFS
sda2 being Gnome Zen Mini PCLOS-ext3
sda3 is swap

I imagine I need to re-size the partition that the current PCLOS install is one, plenty of room to shrink it, and create new one. Would it be best to delete the swap partition first to maintain numbering sequence? That is, so the new partition could be "sda3", then make a new swap partition which would then become "sda4"?

Second question, assuming the partition issue is all sorted out, when I start to install the new PCLOS, will it automagically recognize the existing installs, and offer to install correctly and write the new selection properly to the existing grub menu? Or will it try to create it's own and/or wipe out the current one that exists on the current PCLOS install?

Thanks in advance for any tips/info!

[uncleV]

I already have a dual-boot of windoze and Zen-Mini, thinking of adding another version of PCLOS to that,..

... and I'm sure you gonna install E17...

Zen Mini-->E17-->next?

Where are you heading to this way, Brutus?
! - You're heading to KDE this way, Brutus! - !  

[Dragynn]

Et tu Uncle? 

NEVER!

E-17 is light on resources, we doesn't like piggies unless we is eating them precious 

[uncleV]

Will wait (and will see) ha-Ha-HAA!

[menotu]

Dragynn - my input would be to backup - backup - backup!!  

You mentioned possibly resizing your drive/partition and although it nearly always works out fine it can (and occasionally) does go wrong therefore I'd backup any data / settings / app exports etc etc to somewhere safe.

I think as you're installing PCLinuxOS again it shouldn't cause Grub/boot problems as it should pick your other OS setups during the install

Good luck.

[Duvid]

Good Morning,

I am presently triple booting as you would like to and it worked out quite easy. I have Win 7 on  first partition, Gnome on second, swap in between my PCLOS partition. Since their is a 4 primary partition limitation, I created an extended partition to house my linux distros. I prefer to have separate /root and /home for each distros  so that would far exceed the limitations without putting all the partitons inside the extended partitons. I am not sure exactly what the limitations are but I think it would be difficult to reach. My /root is 15gig and my /home is 30 gig. Since I have a terabyte drive, anything left over became my data drive which I share with both distros. Windows is basically there for a rare need. Keep in mind there are many different ways to break up your partition, some like to combine /root and /home and some like to separate. Neither is wrong and both seem to work well.
  I am more comfortable repartitioning with a GUI, so I have either used Gparted upon booting or the partiton tool on the LiveCD during the install process of PCLOS. Always use custom partition so you have absolute control of what is happening during the install process. After resizing the partiton, you will then be asked where you want /root to be and then /home to be. PCLOS will format it in ext4. The swap partition is found automatically. The rest of the install goes along  by itself,untill the bootloader . The bootloader will/should have the NAME of the drive at the top which puts grub at the beginning of the drive, not on the partition.There is a way to modify the the name of each OS to your preference at this point ,but it is best to let it continue until you are sure what you are doing. After a few seconds it will say Finish . Close the box, and reboot the computer in the same manner you would normally shutdown. During this process you will be prompted to take the disk out and the computer will reboot completely to the boot menu.
    If all went well you will see the boot menu with all your OS listed. If not, this can be fixed with a liveCD and doing redo-mbr as root in a terminal or (using O-P posting on in the forum on fixing grub) I learned alot from him one snowy evening). I am sure something was left out, so feel free to fill in the blanks.

Edit:    
      Just noticed you already have three partitions, so in your case the easiest thing to do is create an extended partition to put  all the PCLOS partitions you wish to create. You can even create a few partitions BEFORE the PCLOS  install if you think you might want to add another distro on the hard drive. PCLOS with the grub-legacy has picked that up well for me well. Of course you can also use VirtualBox.

[Dragynn]

Will wait (and will see) ha-Ha-HAA!

uggh, no taskbar Uncle, I like my taskbars, and don't like the Mac-ish zoomie thing at the bottom middle as I abhor everything apple. Nope, what I really like is the speed and clean elegant look overall, if I can figure out how to add a real taskbar in place of the zoomie thing, i'll do a hard install, for now just testing.....

Thanks Menotu and Duvid for excellent advice!